Chapter 249: Ginseng Breeding

The cured meat that hadn’t gone through summer showed not even a speck of mold on its surface. After washing it clean, it could be directly stir-fried.

Over such a long period, the salt had already permeated every part of the cured meat. When sliced open, it revealed a red-and-white marbled pattern, emitting a faint, savory aroma.

Once Xiulan tossed it into the wok for stir-frying, a rich fragrance immediately filled the air. The fatty parts turned translucent, while the lean meat became even more vibrantly red and glossy.

After a brief sear, she added chopped wild garlic, gave it a couple of stirs, and it was ready to serve.

With the rice cooked, eating it alongside the wild garlic stir-fried cured meat was simply and overwhelmingly delicious.

The wild garlic had a unique fragrance, somewhat similar to garlic sprouts but with an additional distinct note. Combined with the savory aroma of the cured meat, it was the perfect accompaniment for rice.

After finishing his rice, Lin Heng even ate a few more mouthfuls of just the wild garlic and cured meat, praising his wife’s cooking skills.

“This meat is yummy.”

Xiao Xia nodded her head as she said this, struggling a bit to eat with her spoon.

Lin Heng took the bowl and fed her. She still hadn’t learned how to use chopsticks yet.

After the meal, Lin Heng habitually sat in the courtyard to bask in the sun. Half an hour later, he got up, went inside, fetched the rice, corn, and soybean seeds, and took them to his father.

He had bought two packs of rice seeds and three packs each of corn and soybean seeds. The amount of land they had now was more than sufficient.

Father Lin took the seeds and curiously examined the packaging. Seeing the words stating a yield of 1,000 to 1,200 jin per mu, his face revealed shock.

“Can this really achieve a yield of one thousand jin per mu? It’s not deceptive, is it?” Father Lin was filled with skepticism.

It was important to know that their family’s rice yield last year was only a little over three hundred jin per mu. This was equivalent to tripling the yield. How could he not be excited?

“That’s right, isn’t this false advertising? Corn yield of twelve hundred jin per mu, soybean yield of four hundred jin per mu. That’s just too much!” Mother Lin picked up the corn and soybean seed packets, looking them over again and again, still unable to believe it.

Lin Heng smiled and said, “These numbers are written because people have actually grown that much. The seeds were bought from the Provincial Agricultural Science Institute. How could they possibly engage in false advertising?”

Then he added, “As long as you apply the fertilizer properly, spray pesticides timely, and avoid any major pests or diseases, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

Actually, these yields were considered average. Hybrid rice could achieve a yield of three thousand jin per mu, which was truly astonishing. Of course, hybrid rice was said to be not very tasty.

“Never mind one thousand jin, if it reaches eight hundred jin, I’d buy these seeds to plant every year from now on,” Father Lin nodded.

Mother Lin also nodded. “Yes, even eight hundred jin is more than double our yield from last year. Ten mu of land yielding eight thousand jin. We’d never have to eat cornmeal again.”

“I estimate there shouldn’t be a problem. Many farmers over in Ancheng are buying them,” Lin Yue, who had just walked into the courtyard, also chimed in.

Hearing their eldest son say this too, the elderly couple began to feel hopeful.

After storing the seeds inside the house, Father Lin led the ox to continue plowing the fields. Lin Heng followed along to collect ricefield eels.

That afternoon, perhaps because these fields were too dry, the number of ricefield eels was scarce. They finished plowing one entire field without spotting a single one.

“Dad, let me take a turn plowing.”

Lin Heng said this and went over to take hold of the plow handle. With a light shout, the big yellow ox pulled the plow forward rapidly. The soil was turned over with a swishing sound, tumbling to the side. The process was extremely efficient.

“These draft animals are really useful! There’s a certain pleasure in driving them!”

After finishing one field, Lin Heng sighed with feeling. Driving an ox to plow was truly a joyful task.

“Give it to me.”

Father Lin chuckled, lifted the plow, and headed for the next field below.

Lin Heng sat on the field ridge, enjoying the breeze for a while, watching his father and Elder Brother take turns plowing. Xiong Ba squatted beside him, tongue lolling, ears perked up, vigilantly watching for any movement in the surroundings.

Unknowingly, the sun began to set. Lin Yue picked up the wooden bucket and shook his head. “Younger Brother, no harvest this afternoon. Just one.”

“That’s normal. There aren’t any ricefield eels in this kind of dry field to begin with,” Lin Heng wasn’t surprised. Ricefield eels were all in those muddy, waterlogged fields.

Lin Yue said, “Then let’s just eat the eels we have in the house. There aren’t many anyway, and they wouldn’t sell for much money.”

Lin Heng nodded. “Let’s keep them for now. We’ll find time to eat them in a few days.”

On the way back, the three of them discussed the work starting tomorrow. The laborers had already been found, and everyone else had been notified. He had also asked someone going down the mountain to the market to deliver a message to his brother-in-law.

…

In the blink of an eye, it was the next morning. At seven o’clock, just as the sky was brightening, Lin Heng got up. After finishing his exercise, Lin Heng drove his car to town.

At this time, only a few shops in the town were open. Wang Zhou hadn’t even gotten up yet, and the Procurement Station’s gate was tightly shut. Lin Heng parked his vehicle on the road and waited for a while before seeing Liu Haigui walking over with five other people, carrying toolkits in their hands.

“Squeeze in.”

Lin Heng said to Liu Haigui. He couldn’t be bothered to make a second trip. Anyway, no one was checking, so overloading didn’t matter.

“Can seven people really fit? And will it have enough power to pull us?” Liu Haigui was a bit skeptical about the vehicle’s horsepower.

“Let’s give it a try. If we can all squeeze in, there shouldn’t be a problem,” Lin Heng said. The vehicle’s horsepower was absolutely no issue at all.

After some attempts, they actually managed to sit down. Three people sat behind Lin Heng, and three squeezed into the sidecar next to him.

Once everyone was seated, Lin Heng slowly drove towards Red Maple Village. The vehicle’s horsepower was completely sufficient; he was just worried that going too fast might cause an accident.

At seven fifty-two, the vehicle full of people arrived at the foot of Red Maple Mountain.

“Boss Lin, you dug these fish ponds? That’s a massive project,” Liu Haigui said, shocked upon seeing so many fish ponds.

“Yes. Your job will be to build the pond warehouses.”

Lin Heng nodded. He drove the vehicle straight along the road between the fish ponds to the highest spot where the house was being built. All the villagers who had come to work had already arrived. His father and Elder Brother were supervising.

His Third Uncle, his younger aunt’s husband, and others had also come and were standing together. Seeing Lin Heng arrive, they were all astonished by the vehicle’s horsepower, which could actually pull so many people.

Lin Heng parked the vehicle, took out the work ledger, and began registering. The ordinary workers from the village still earned eighty cents a day, with no meals provided.

After registering everyone in the work ledger, Lin Heng began assigning tasks.

Lin Heng looked at the man with the mustache and said, “Liu Haigui, today you’ll first lead the team in laying the foundation. Are six skilled workers plus twelve unskilled laborers enough for you?”

“Enough, enough,” Liu Haigui nodded.

“Good.” Lin Heng assigned twelve unskilled laborers to his team, which included his own father, mainly to serve a supervisory role.

Once assigned, Liu Haigui led his team to start measuring, marking lines, and preparing to lay the foundation. Since the warehouse was only going to be a single story, three meters high, the foundation didn’t need to be exceptional. Using large stones and concrete to build it up would suffice.

With twelve people assigned out, Lin Heng still had fifteen people left on his side, including himself.

“All of us will go up to the Red Maple Mountain area to help me cut down small trees and clear the woodland.”

Lin Heng said to the group. These people had all come with hoes and machetes.

He led them to the area with the wooden house on Red Maple Mountain and began dealing with the trees in the woods, preparing the ground for his future planting of forest-cultivated ginseng.

“Aside from the ones I deliberately planted, any tree thinner than an arm is to be cut down. Six people are enough for that task. The remaining nine people will use hoes to loosen the soil once over, removing weeds and some small tree roots.”

“The cut trees won’t be wasted either. We’ll just use them to encircle the entire perimeter of Red Maple Mountain to prevent cattle and sheep from entering.”

After saying this, Lin Heng led everyone to start working together. Red Maple Mountain originally had many tall trees, and the spacing between trees was relatively large. After this treatment, the spacing became even larger.

This kind of semi-shaded environment was very suitable for ginseng growth. In a few years, when the ginseng was harvested, he should have earned enough money to build a deep-mountain villa here.

“You and that Diesel Chainsaw are really fast.”

Seeing Lin Heng using the Diesel Chainsaw, someone said with a laugh.

“Aside from being a bit expensive, this thing has no drawbacks. It doesn’t take much effort, and it saws trees exceptionally fast,” Lin Heng said with a smile.

“However, it’s not without its shortcomings. Trees that are two or three centimeters thick aren’t easy to saw,” he added.

“Can I give it a try?”

Someone was very eager to get their hands on it and try it out. Lin Heng was quite happy to lend the Diesel Chainsaw out.

He had bought twenty jin of ginseng seeds. One jin of seeds could plant roughly one mu of land, so he only needed to clear a little over twenty mu of land in the woods.

The mountain forest of Red Maple Mountain wasn’t shrubland. This kind of tall forest covered over a hundred mu. Lin Heng selected the most suitable area near the mountaintop, where there was plenty of humus and ample scattered sunlight.

After working here for two hours, Lin Heng handed the supervisory duties over to his Third Uncle and went down the mountain himself to check on the construction techniques being used for the buildings.

By the time Lin Heng came down, they had already marked the lines according to the blueprint and started digging the foundation.

For the warehouse side, they would start pouring concrete once the foundation was dug, then build the walls. For the incubation room side, they needed to construct the incubation pools inside the building first, lay bricks, apply cement, install drainage pipes and water inlet pipes, before they could pour the foundation and start building the walls.

Lin Heng took a measuring tape and a level to check. This Liu Haigui’s skills were decent; there wasn’t much to criticize.

“Boss Lin, I told you to rest assured, so you can rest assured,” Liu Haigui said with a smile.

“It’s passable.” Lin Heng nodded, counting the heads.

“By the way, are you planning to use steel structure or wood for the roof of this warehouse?” Liu Haigui asked again.

“Wood. Transporting steel structure from the city would be too much trouble.” Lin Heng shook his head.

If he were going with a steel structure, he wouldn’t have bought so many bricks. Wouldn’t it be better to use steel for everything?

The roof would still use wooden beams, then be covered with clay tiles. However, this time he’d have to buy the main wooden beams. The big trees at his house were too far away, and he didn’t want to cut down the ones on Red Maple Mountain for now.

But these days, wood didn’t cost much anyway, so it didn’t really matter.

In the blink of an eye, the sun had set. Today, they had only dug out a small half of the foundation. The efficiency of digging on Red Maple Mountain wasn’t fast either, managing just over one mu of land in a day.

There were quite a few tree roots and vines in the forest. This was essentially land reclamation, so digging was very laborious. It was normal for progress to be slow.

The next day, Lin Heng checked on the work here and then went back. He went into the mountains and dug up a lot of humus soil, which he dumped into a vegetable plot in the front yard. He was preparing for the ginseng seedling cultivation.

Ginseng seedling cultivation took a relatively long time. He took out the twenty jin of seeds he had bought, poured them all into a wooden basin, and soaked them in warm water.

Two days later, after these seeds had absorbed enough water, he would scatter them into the prepared humus soil, sprinkle some water, and cover them with plastic film.

Ginseng seeds took one to two months to germinate. By the time they sprouted, it would be around the Qingming Festival. Lin Heng didn’t plan to cultivate the seedlings at home. Instead, he would directly plant them in the forest once they showed white bud points.

This method had a much higher survival rate than directly scattering the seeds.

In the blink of an eye, it was already the fourth day of construction. Lin Heng went to check on the work progress.

At the construction site, the foundation had been completely dug out, and the pouring had been completed yesterday.

Liu Haigui and a few other skilled workers were currently building the indoor incubation pools. Each incubation room would have an eighty-square-meter incubation pool, one meter high, ten meters long, and eight meters wide, requiring brickwork and cement plastering.

Although they had been digging the foundation these past two days, the skilled workers hadn’t been idle. They had already built two incubation pools, just hadn’t plastered them with cement yet.

On the mountain side, after three days, they had cleared nearly four mu of land. After all, it was all done by manual labor, so one couldn’t ask for too much.

However, the tree-sawing work was now complete. Lin Heng looked it over and was very satisfied. At a glance, the forest looked much more open. The messy small trees were gone, and the branches of the big trees had all been cut off up to two or three meters high. People walking inside wouldn’t get scratched by the treetops anymore.

“Lin Heng, I directed the branch cutting. Did a decent job, right?” Li Baiquan asked with a smile.

“I figured since you want to plant ginseng, you’d need more sunlight to come in, so I had some branches from the big trees cut too,” he explained with another smile.

“Very good. You’ve thought it through quite thoroughly, Uncle-in-law.” Lin Heng smiled and nodded.

After watching for a while, Lin Heng went to check on the wooden house. The door here wasn’t locked; they could come in for water when they got tired from work.

On his way back, Lin Heng checked on the Dendrobium officinale he had planted on the trees. They were dormant in winter. Looking carefully, some parts hadn’t died yet.

After checking the work progress here, Lin Heng drove off again. Braving the already not-too-cold biting wind, he arrived at Carpenter Liang’s door in Baima Village in no time.

When Lin Heng arrived, Carpenter Liang was eating breakfast. Seeing Lin Heng, he quickly stood up and said, “Oh, a rare guest! Come in, sit down. Have something to eat first.”

“No need, I just ate.” Lin Heng shook his head. “I came to tell you, Carpenter Liang, that you can come up tomorrow to help. We’ll need your help with things like making roof beams. The wage is still one yuan fifty per day.”

“We can talk about all that later. Even if you don’t eat, at least have some water.”

Carpenter Liang put his bowl down, took Lin Heng’s arm politely, and insisted.

“Alright.”

Lin Heng really couldn’t break free, so he had to follow him in, had a sip of tea, and received some enthusiastic hospitality.

“I’ve had my tea, so I’ll be heading off now.”

After finishing a cup of tea, Lin Heng smiled and stood up to take his leave.

Carpenter Liang couldn’t persuade him to stay, so he saw him off on the road, saying, “Take care on your way. I’ll come up first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Alright.”

Lin Heng nodded. But instead of heading back, he drove to the town.

He was going to town to check out plastic pipes for sale. It wasn’t just that the incubation pools needed a water supply and drainage system; he also needed to plan an inlet and outlet drainage system for all the shrimp ponds.

With such a system, changing the water became much more convenient. Moreover, he had already planned to dig an aerator pond of nearly four hundred square meters next to the uppermost hatching pond.

He would place the purchased aerator in the aerator pond, channel mountain stream water into it, start the aerator to oxygenate the water, and then transport the oxygenated water through pipes to each shrimp pond, thereby increasing the water’s oxygen content.

Although this method was troublesome, it genuinely and effectively increased the water’s oxygen content, thus preventing the Green Shrimp from oxygen deprivation, and it could also appropriately increase the farming density.

It could be considered a method that achieved multiple objectives with a single move.

His purpose in coming to town this time was to look at pipes here, ask about prices, then return to measure the required quantity before coming back to place an order.

There was only one shop selling plastic pipes in town. After inquiring, he found none were suitable; they would need to be sourced from the city.

Lin Heng immediately decided he would calculate the dimensions himself and go to the city to buy them directly, which would also avoid having a middleman profiting from the price difference.

The ginseng seeds have been changed to twenty catties. There was a minor issue with what was written earlier, thank you for your understanding.

(End of Chapter)